cental

… In Partnership TA/HU,

December 11, 2009: A workshop to discuss proactive media involvement in the fight against corruption has ended in Monrovia. Held in partnership with Trust Africa/Humanity United, the roundtable is part of activities under the citizens’ “Right to Know” campaign, which is geared toward empowering citizens with advocacy tools that enable them to constructively and vigorously engage policy makers and implementers in demand of more accountability and transparency. The event took place at the Krystal Oceanview Hotel and called to attendance close to 20 media professionals from media institutions, Liberia Media Center and public anti-corruption institutions like the LACC.

Held under the theme “Fighting Corruption in Post-Conflict Liberia - the Role of the Liberian Media, the roundtable had the objective to create the forum that allows for expert gauging of the Liberian media’s level of engagement in efforts to tackle entrenched corruption. It also created the platform for sharing ideas on how to strengthen the symbiotic relationship existing between the media and civil society as well as other anti-corruption institutions in the country.

Discussions at the roundtable were mainly guided by stats of media reportage generated by CENTAL on the Liberia Corruption Watch website set up late last year with the view of regularly uploading corruption stories from various media houses in the country. The discussion also centered on exploring avenues by which to develop the media’s investigative skills to make them more effective as anti-corruption watchdogs. Emphasis was placed on making them more professional in uncovering and following up on corruption stories to a logical conclusion.

At the height of points offered by participants was the importance of building the media’s capacity to make them abide by professional and ethical conducts while executing their duties. The whole idea of cato (payola) journalism was vehemently frowned on by participants who thought that it has the likelihood to make journalists vulnerable to corruption and promote unprofessionalism. It became a general consensus that the media require thorough training and a < script src="/plugins/editors/tinymce/jscripts/tiny_mce/themes/advanced/langs/en.js" type="text/javascript"> dequate compensation that will help build resistance against the lures of corruption. The media practitioners were conclusively in accord with the opinion that the poor condition of service faced by journalists often impacts on their professionalism and independence while performing their tasks.

At the end of the discussion, the question of how to nurture integrity in the media and increase media commitment to the fight against corruption emerged. There was also the question of how to improve the mutual relationship that benefits both the media and civil society which would lead to the reduction in journalists’ expectation for reward before covering and publishing of events. The general conclusion was that the media need to hone their skills in investigative journalism to make them more professional and independent of government and business influence.